products from the provinces through which they passed.[1] To Cortés these valuables served to stimulate the desire for exploration by which a strait might be disclosed, and a route found to the Orient, and with this object he sent another party to examine the coast for a suitable harbor with timber for ship-building convenient.[2] This was found at the mouth of Rio Zacatula, in the province of Zacatollan,[3] and Villafuerte[4] was thereupon sent with fully forty Spaniards, chiefly shipwrights, carpenters, sawyers, blacksmiths, and sailors, to form a settlement, and build two caravels and two brigantines, the former for sea expeditions, the others for coast exploration. A large number of allies joined, especially such as had been trained in work connected with the building of the first fleet.[5] Some were employed in carrying spikes, cordage, sails, and other material from Vera Cruz and Mexico. The colony was reënforced from the abandoned settlement at Tzintzuntzan, and became now the headquarters for
- ↑ In Herrera, dec. iv. lib. iv. cap. ii., Juan del Valle is mentioned as the discoverer of Tehuantepec, for which he obtained a coat of arms. In dec. iii. lib. iii. cap. xvii., a discovery expedition to Tehuantepec under Guillen de la Loa, Castillo, Alferez Roman Lopez, and two others, is spoken of as if subsequent to the above, their route being through Zapotecapan, along Chiapas, and through Soconusco, a distance of 400 leagues. Chico and three others are said to have explored the coast from Tehuantepec to Zacatula, but this is doubtful, since the intermediate Tutupec was hostile. Others sent through Jalisco never returned. Cortés states that his two parties numbered two Spaniards each, but they may have been leaders, and were certainly accompanied by Indians. They appear to have returned before the end of October. Cartas, 259, 262. In Cortés, Residencia, ii. 118-19, Juan de Umbría is said to have been leader of one party. On his return he was imprisoned for two years on the charge of having omitted Cortés' name in taking possession of the sea. Gomara, Hist. Mex., 219, assumes that two parties went through Michoacan, and Prescott hastily amplifies the achievements of one party, although the chroniclers never mention even what became of it. Mex., iii. 237.
- ↑ According to Herrera this should have been the Chico party, but it is doubtful.
- ↑ Native Races, ii. 109. Mercator, 1574, has Cacatula; Munich Atlas, vi., Cacatola, same name a little farther north; Ogilby, 1671, Zacatula; Laet, 1633, R. Zacatula and Zacatula city; Jefferys, 1776; Zacatela, province and city; Kiepert, Sacatula. Cartog. Pac. Coast, MS., ii. 384.
- ↑ Evidently Juan Rodriguez, the leading brigantine captain, vol. i. 615, though Bernal Diaz alludes to him as if he were a different man. Panes, in Monumentos Domin. Esp., MS., 59.
- ↑ Chiefly Tezcucans, says Ixtlilxochitl, Rel., 429. Zurita speaks of oppression and hardships to which these allies were subjected. Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiv. 414.
